Has anyone here besides me had an emergency?

I had an emergency landing, after the engine shut down during a solo X-Country before i had my private ticket. The mixture cable broke, the carb went to full lean. The engine shut down, i did my checklists, declared an emergency, and landed in a field next to a quarry, next to a silo, over a ditch, and under power lines. Once on the ground, i called my instructor, and talked to the FAA. A mechanic came out that day and replaced the Mixture Cable. Once it was fixed, my instructor flew the plane back to K-_T.

Did you get in trouble at all?

Why would he be in trouble? He is allowed to land anywhere in an emergency! Though you would at least be questioned if you landed in a restricted area, though I think you would be OK if you could prove you were outside of the restricted area when the emergency happened. I never had an emergency, though I have had friends and acquaintances who have. It has been just over 12 years since flying full scale, sigh....well maybe after the kids get through college.

[sm=tired.gif]

Nope, no trouble at all. i had all my paperwork in line, and the people's field i landed in were grateful that i was ok and the plane was good. i had about 35 hours and i was flying solo when that happened this past May. I now have about 80 hours, and still flying the 172 that put me in the field.

Hey, great job ! Glad you got that out of the way,,carry on.

Flytoolow,

I second N726AC, that was a great job of flying!!!

Many 172's sustain damage to the nose gear in emergency landings, so you should have made the aircraft owner quite happy.

It's good you didn't let this experience prevent you from obtaining that license, because complete failures are really very rare. In 30+ years of flying airplanes and helicopters, I'm never experienced a complete engine failure as you have. I've never had to prove I could make a successful emergency landing, but you did and were definitely up to the task!

Congratulations!

DT56

Thank you

Thank you

I came very close to a midair (tower screw-up) on my first solo but nothing serious.

Glad you knew what to do. I see a lot of student pilots who would panic in that sitiation and would not come out very well.

I don't fly anymore, but I can share a recent one my son had in a Navajo (some details omitted to protect the parties involved):

They had an oil leak problem at their destination and the plane was in the hanger all day. The mechs found two probable sources of the leak. He did a test flight, and it seemed okay. They missed their cargo run back to _______, so they dead headed back empty.

15 minutes out, they noticed oil coming out the left engine again..Mike told his co-jo they would monitor it...the words were no sooner out his mouth, when POOF! Flames coming out the vents and cowl flaps!!! They went through the "inflight fire" checklist VERY quickly, and got the engine shut down and feathered...which had the fortunate side effect of stopping the flow of oil spraying on the hot turbo..Flames went out, engine cooled down and they limped back to _______ on one engine (at 12,000') at a mere 100 knots...They continued on their Instrument flight plan and greased the landing, with about 8 airliners waiting,( even got a complement from one of the crews on the nice landing) and the firetrucks along side the runway.. He was able to taxi back to his ramp without stopping and shut it down. [Can't taxi a Navajo on one engine once it has stopped - it will go around in circles.]

The left side of the fuselage, wing and nacelle were covered with most of the engine's 12 qt oil capacity. They whisked it into the hanger and found a crack on the #3 cylinder. This was a brand new engine on its first day in service!!!
Anyways, junior is back home safe and sound. He found the whole experience very exciting. They do practice drills all the time for such emergencies, and he is d*mned glad they did...he knew exactly what to do.

I was on an autopilot test flight in a Cessna 402 and we had a total electrical failure (unrelated to autopilot work). This resulted in the loss of all radios and electronic instruments. We eventually had a wheels up landing. The plane has never flown again but we did make the news

In flight emergency? A little past PNR on a flight from Travis to Hickam (Hawaii) lost an engine on my C-121. No big deal, landed normally.

Then another time, flying from the west into Hawaii, my B-57 nose strut collapsed on landing. Not really an "In-flight" event, but almost.

Finally, coming out of Wake Island I lost all hydraulics in a 7C. Too heavy to land, so we just went on the Hickam. Ran off the end of the runway (no brakes) and if the over run hadn't been muddy we all would have had an unscheduled swimming party.

Three times into the islands, and each time a little worse problem. Lesson learned? I never again flew into Hawaii, Seems those people (or the islands themselves) just don't like me. I made sure to fly through Elmendorf on every trans-Pacific run after that. Haw.

Speak true, I have landed two other times off the runway, but they were both due to the expression of displeasure by the VC and the NVA. I don't think they really liked the explosive presents I was taking to them. Haw again.

Bill.

Well done on your landing. I am also doing x country solo's and am always worried as to how well I would perform should something like that happen.

A question to all the airplane mechanices Regarding the mixture cable. Wouldn't it make more sense to have it fail in full rich so that the engine would still be running? The throttle is like that isn't it?

Great job handling your emergency! Something to be damn proud of.

I have had a few in 15 years of flying. Had a WestWind Jet try to tuck at 41,000 feet, had a couple of other planes try to fly through us, can't figure out how they didn't see us, they came from below and behind! Way too close. Had a float break in a C-150 on a training flight. Told the student I didn't like the sound of the engine, and had him turn around and head for the airport. I told him to stay high. We flew about 10 minutes back and the engine puked. Luckilly, the extra altitude was enough to get to the runway.

Here is a picture of my last emergency! Hope I never have another one. That was enough! Mecanic left a manual in the turbo filter. It rode there for quite a few flights, and let go last june on take off. I was 100 feet high when the turbo exploded. Had just enough time to feather it and turn to miss the trees. Hit 18 inches from the top of a hill in a gully. If I could have gotten over it, I think I would have climed and made it back. Just didn't have time or alt. At least I kept it right side up!

Always keep your head in the cockpit. You always think it won't happen to me, and then it does. Keep the rubber side down and happy flying!

[X(]how did u get out of there?!?[X(]

Thank God you are still alive!!!!!!!!! after a crash like that.........

Jackjet

I was at Raytheon turning wrenches on King-Airs and getting my instrument ticket on the weekends. We had a very tricky problem on a C-90, the landing gear was acting up, and usually Beechcraft landing gear is pretty solid, but anyway we replaced the hydraulic power-pac and cycled the gear MANY times on the ground, every time three down and locked!!!

So the time came for the test flight and I jumped at the chance to ride along with the pilot that usually flies the aircraft. So we took off IFR from Houston Hobby and I flew to Victoria at FL240 then we headed back. Landing checklist almost finished when we got only two lights!! The nose and right main decided to lock but the left main was AWOL. So we called Go-Round and notified tower then we started a pumpin' and that light would not come on!!!! The tower vectored us for a tower fly-by two times and each time they saw nothing out of the ordinary, but we couldnt give up that easy. They put us out by the Missouri city towers and we flew around for over an hour and we pumped over two hours, so the pilot made the decision to declare an emergency and we headed for the field. The plan was simple I would pump the emergency handle just until touchdown in hopes that it would lock and then he would put it down onthe right main hold it off till it dropped and then brace for impact.

So were on final for 35 and im pumpin and suddenly as we slowed to about 120kts the dang light came on!!!!!!!!!!!!

We found later that the new power-pac was actually bypassing through the emergency extention lines!!!

Train like its for REAL and it will be much easier to do your job.

Flyboy, which engine quit?
Was anyone with you?

That was nasty.

Hats off to you guys. Some are not as skilled or lucky!!!!!!!

Flying a Lear 25 once out of Pontaic MI and jusy out of FL 350 we had a fire light come on and go out. Not knowing for sure what it was, Being real or not I elected to head for Clevland Hopkins. (Long runways and Fire trucks). We told center that we wanted to divert to CLE. He asked if we wanted to declare an emergency. At this point it was precautionary. Just as soon as I unkeyed the Mike the fire light came on with all the bells and whistles. THAT gets your attention. We did declare the emergency and we were cleared direct to CLE and started the decent out of FL 370. Now it takes a good 25 mins to decend that far. We were headed down hill at a rate of speed the VSI could not keep up with. 2 Fire bottles were shot off and the Fire went out. We told the passengers what was up at this point. We were a little busy to explain at first. Although Im sure they could tell something was up with all the lights up front.

The trucks were all there waiting we landed and taxied right up to a fire truck. No fire ever happened. You cant see the engines from the cockpit so you do everything as if its real.

During the inspection it was found that a neopreame wire connector block had rubbed thru to the pin for the fire loop. It completed the curcuit and caused the lights to come on. Not really an emergency but we treated it as one.

The FAA guy just laughed and said we did the right thing and then just told us to have a good day. I did start to shake after we were on the ground. Fire does scare me

Jeff

Hey Willam I just wanted to say thanks, I was born after vietnam but I still sincerely appreciate you guys.

I've come home on three engines a couple of times... then again, the airplane I was on would routinely feather #1 to extend the time on station... I've even been up and had #3 "torch" which kinda got our pulses elevated.

We once were airborne and were just doing our post take-off checks. The FLIR operator lowered the turret and turned it back to look at the belly as we were undercast (clouds below us) when someone smelled something burning... at the same time the FLIR operator saw a heat "bloom" on the belly of the aircraft.... we started dumping fuel and turning off everything we didn't need, declared an emergency and turned back. As we neared the field, the guys in the tower looked out at us with binoculars and thought they saw a stream of smoke coming off the belly... with crash trucks rolling out for us, the pilots put it on the ground, stomped on the brakes and gave full reverse thrust. As soon as we stopped, the hatches popped and we all started running.

.. turns out the airconditioning pack had let go and dumped a bunch of hot oil all over itself which accounted for the fumes. The hot oil on the inside of the skin made a hot spot appear. Sure made for an anxious few minutes!

Gentlemen:

We need to remember the emergencies that aren't too. Richard Bach had a term, "Automatic Rough." This happens when you are well beyond gliding range of an airport, depending on one engine. As an example, when you leave Miami for the Bahamas, you wont be more than five or ten minutes out over the Atlantic when you will start hearing strange noises from the engine, and swear you felt a little shudder. This will continue until you're on approach for landing, then the engine will be running as sweetly as ever. And it will continue running great until you're out over the water headed back, What's that I hear? Haw.

Serious notes. The early Wright R-3350TC had a habit of failing, engine shut down was so common in the first Connies with that engine that the Connie became known as "The World's Fastext Tri-Motor."

And the F-80. How many know why there was a red stripe around the afterbody? The J-47 liked to blow up, the compressor wheel would shatter. The red stripe showed where not to stand when the engine was running.

More than fifty years of development has done wonders for reliability, but stupidity will be with us forever. As for example the service sheets left in Flyboy's turbo intake.

Bill.

Sorry for the delay. It was the right engine that quit, took me about 15 seconds to feather and secure, and another 15 seconds till we hit. We were climbing, but the terain out climbed us. One other was with me in the right seat. He didn't get broken up as bad and is now working part time. I broke everything on my right side, got burned from a fuel tank exploding as I was rolling out and had many internal injuries as well as both lungs collapsing. Not a lot of fun. I am glad to be able to move. I can stand for limited periods and walk some, but also limited. That is pretty good since they said I wouldn't live first, then said I would never walk again. I am making progress every day though. I will be back to work hopefully soon. Nothing worse than a pilot being grounded.